


Happy Mother's Day

by chipperdyke



Series: The Light and the Dark [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 21:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10930056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chipperdyke/pseuds/chipperdyke
Summary: Henry and David discuss Mother's Day plans.





	Happy Mother's Day

**Author's Note:**

> An interlude from Henry's perspective pretty early on in my longer work, The Dark One's Desire.

“What's Emma doing for grandma?”

“Oh, I don't know,” David said, spinning his beer. They were sitting at a table at Granny's. “I think they are going to have a bake-off.”

“Weird,” Henry said, trying to imagine Emma baking. In New York once, she put breadcrumbs on a boxed macaroni and cheese. The product of this experiment was black on the top and crunchy in the middle, and never spoken of again.

“What are you doing with your Mom?” David asked. His blue eyes were soft. Henry wondered if the word choice was deliberate.

“We’re going to Boston. I'm gonna take her on this walking tour of all the, you know, monuments and stuff, and we're gonna go to dinner at Tresca, which is supposed to be the best.”

“Regina likes Boston?” David repeated dubiously.

“Now that the curse is gone, we spend a lot of time out of the city. Just three restaurants get kind of boring. Mom is way too cosmopolitan for Storybrooke.” Especially in the past two and a half months. Regina’s coping mechanism was to control, rigidly - to drive the peasants harder, and in Storybrooke that meant she worked until midnight every night - to reach for a sense of perfection that was unachievable. It was a useless effort to try to make her relax. So forcing her to drive for five hours and then march all over the City of Boston was as close as he could imagine to a relaxing day. She would be so worn out at the end of it that she might actually sleep.

David snorted. “You think? Too bad her curse sucked.”

Henry smiled along in good nature, although David was insulting Regina, and his protectiveness was flaring badly.

“We have barely seen you two,” David said quietly. “I know it's really the crisis that brings us together, but have you even talked to Emma since Hades? Did you know she's basically replaced all her furniture?”

“She bought furniture?”

“She had furniture before.” It was Henry's turn to scoff. “Regina pays her well, you know. I don't know where all that money goes…”

“Whiskey,” Henry said under his breath, and David seemed to consider responding, and decided against it.

“Weren't you two doing like an, every other weekend deal?”

“We were,” Henry said.

“What happened in Hades?”

 _Emma had sex with my mom, and now my mom’s pregnant, and then Emma abandoned her for months._ It was blindingly simple. “I told you, Emma took Violet's heart and made her… say some awful things to me during our date in Camelot.”

“While she was the Dark One,” David protested.

“Well, that sucked, and she hasn't apologized enough yet.” Henry thought about it. “She went to Hades without telling any of us. She basically committed suicide, and that hurt Mom so much. We had to wait a whole month to go get her, remember?”

“It hurt everyone,” David said. “It was stupid. Yes, Emma has made some big mistakes, but she is your mother.”

“Just if I want her to be,” Henry said.

“Did you know she's been going to the Town Hall every morning? I don't know what she's doing there, but she's always driving from the wrong direction coming to work every morning.”

“So what?” Henry knew Emma was leaving Regina food in the morning. The first day, Regina had set the offerings on fire, spectacularly. She'd returned home before Henry left for school to change out of her clothes, which smelled like char.

“What is going on?” David said, exasperated. “What did Emma do to Regina? What was so bad?”

“She has to tell you. I won't.”

“Jesus,” David said. “I knew something happened. Did she destroy Robin’s soul in Hades accidentally? I know she left him for the fury, but Regina went after her anyway. And she went to Hades to get him! I don't get it.”

“It was after Camelot,” Henry mumbled.

David leaned forward. “It was the Dark One's curse, wasn't it?”

“Mom sacrificed… something, to um, isolate the Dark One. We thought we could destroy the Dark One with Excalibur once we removed it from Emma, but that didn't work, and then it bound with the Light One, and Mom did a spell to remove it from Emma and Emma is just being the worst, the worst person, for abandoning us after that.” Henry clenched his fists on the table, blinking back tears.

“What did Regina sacrifice?”

“That wasn't what I meant,” Henry said quickly. “I didn't mean that she sacrificed anything. It wasn't her fault. It was the right thing.” Henry had said it enough times to Regina that the words came out of his mouth without a thought. “Don't tell grandma. Please, grandpa, don't tell her.”

“I won't,” David promised. His doe eyes were contemplative. “Snow doesn't believe it, but I think there's something more going on. She's like, 'Now that they don't speak at all, you think it means they're in love? How typical.’ But couldn't you see it, you know, when they were talking? Whatever is going on, it's not just friends stuff.”

Henry knew that if he paused long enough, it would be an affirmation, regardless of what he said. _Yes, Mom’s loved Emma since she first came to Storybrooke._ “I don't know,” he said. “You have to ask Emma.”

“I can't ask Emma,” David said, shuddering. “Girl stuff. And Snow doesn't believe it. Come on, Henry. I've got to be right. I know it.”

Henry checked his watch, and stood. It was almost six. Emma would be at their doorstep in ten minutes, and if Henry wasn't there to head her off, who knew what would happen? Regina would open the door and probably rip Emma's head off. Or worse, they would kiss and make up, meaninglessly, a salve to Regina's pain but not a real solution. Regina thought that Emma did not love her, and the story Henry had written in Hades was ambiguous on the point. Henry couldn't make decisions for his moms, but he could protect Regina until she was ready, or until Emma broke through Henry’s vigorous defense. Until they were somehow, inevitably, alone together again.

“Got to go. Have a good Mother's Day.”

“You too, Hen,” David said, eyes crinkling. “Good night.”


End file.
